Surviving
by Woman of Letters
Summary: The worst victim of a possession is the one possessed... the story of the little girl who was inhabited by Lilith in Season 3 Episode 16: No Rest for the Wicked. Warning: Triggers for depression; suicidal tendencies in this story.
1. Play

**Surviving**

By Woman of Letters

_A/N This was a response to Challenge #1 from the FICWISE Writing Group. The assignment was to write a character sketch of 300 – 1000 words based on a descriptive word. I picked the word "guilty" and my character sketch became a four-chapter story._

_Warning: Extremely angsty; triggers for depression; tendencies towards suicide in this story. If you are seriously depressed, do not read this story. It deals with a very traumatic topic – the effects of possession on the one possessed. _

_Tag to Season 3 Episode 16: No Rest for the Wicked. Several chapters of this story contain dialogue from that episode. I decided Freckles was the girl's brother. It was a nickname. It could have been a cat but I picked the darker option._

Chapter 1:  Play

She still sees it on her hands.

The blood.

The blood of her brother.

It doesn't help that she was powerless at the time, trapped inside her body, and that bitch Lilith was in control. Ten years later, she still remembers. How her little brother, the one she thought was so annoying, the two-year-old with those freckles across his cheek that made everyone think he was so cute, the one who always broke into her games, distracted her friends, the one she was secretly jealous of. (How could a little boy be so cute and yet grate on your nerves at the same time?)

Still... he had his moments.

But all she remembers now is the look in his eyes when she cut his throat and watched him choke on his own blood.

The disbelief.

The fear.

The horror.

The accusation.

_No! _she screamed at Lilith, but of course no one heard. And the demoness just laughed.

"Didn't you tell him you wished he would die, little one? I'm doing you a favor."

When she was forced to fingerpaint with her own brother's blood, wearing a maniacal grin on her face, she realized the truth.

She loved her baby brother.

But by then, it was too late to tell him.

Now, ten years later, she still remembers his sweet face. She still loves him. And she still blames herself.

And she keeps seeing that last look in his eyes, sharp as the dagger she used to cut his throat. The look that said, _How could you?_

Ten years later, she still has no answer.


	2. Birthdays

**Surviving**

By Woman of Letters

_A/N Tag to Season 3 Episode 16: No Rest for the Wicked. Several chapters of this story contain dialogue from that episode. Warning: Triggers for depression; suicidal tendencies in this story._

Chapter 2: Birthdays

Every year, on that day, she thinks about killing herself.

Lilith ruined her birthday. Forever.

One of her classmates has a birthday on September 11th. Since 2001, he hasn't been able to celebrate. How can he celebrate knowing so many people died on that day?

She laughs inside, a bitter, deranged laugh. What would he say if she asked, "How can I celebrate, knowing that at my birthday party, I killed my brother and grandparents?"

Of course, it wasn't her birthday. But for four days, Lilith made it her birthday. She had them bake a cake. She sat them at the table. And bit by bit, she made them all afraid, changing the feeling of birthday from happiness and togetherness to pain and grief. And death. So much death.

Lilith planned it that way. She loves twisting up children. They were only together for a few days, but she knows that monster better than she knows anyone else, except for her parents. Come to think of it, even better than she knows her parents.

A few days with Lilith is like a lifetime with a normal person.

She remembers the smell of birthday cake. Freshly baked by a mother as frightened of her baby as a child fears the boogeyman. Forced to sing happy birthday while her grandma lay dead on the table. Grandma, who had always baked cookies and cakes for her, who had told her stories as she sat at that very table. The table she was sitting at for her fourth birthday party in a row, looking at Grandma's corpse.

"Isn't this wonderful, little one?" Lilith chuckled. "I always loved parties."

The icing tasted like ashes in her mouth and inside Lilith continued to twist the knife.

"I am so sorry about your grandmother," she murmured, in a voice that mocked the pain in her heart. "But it's your birthday party. Time to be happy, darling. You can mourn her later..."

_Monster! Get out of me! _she yelled, knowing that her shouting had no effect. She'd been screaming for days. She tried desperately to shove against Lilith in her mind, but nothing happened.

"Oh... you don't want to piss me off, little girl. Let's see...What can I do to make this day even better for you?"

She stilled her inner struggle, afraid of the glee in the demoness' voice. She needed to stop reacting, the monster fed on her own feelings. But she was only five years old. She couldn't control herself. With mounting fear, she heard the words coming out of her mouth, the words she couldn't stop, as the demoness turned to her grandfather.

"Why did you try to go to Mr. Wayburn for help?"

Her grandfather's face turned white.

_Oh no, Grandpa... _she couldn't help moaning inside. It gave Lilith as much satisfaction to hear her pain and she knew she had to stop reacting. But the monster was in her own head. She could read her thoughts and feelings.

At first he denied it, "I didn't. I don't know what you mean."

Lilith stopped smiling with her mouth. "You big fat liar."

_Don't react,_ she told herself.

Then the witch turned to her mommy and daddy. "Did you two know about this?" And little girl though she was, she could tell, they were afraid. Her mommy and daddy were so afraid.

"No," her daddy finally said.

Her grandpa looked devastated and for a moment, her anger turned on her parents.

_They're afraid to die,_ she reminded herself, before remembering she shouldn't react.

"No," her mother said, sealing her grandpa's fate.

She shuddered inwardly when Lilith put on the hurt little girl look. "Grandpa? You don't love me?"

_Leave him alone! _she shouted, feeling raw inside, wondering why she was still trying.

"I'm sorry. It was a mistake," her grandpa protested, and she knew what was coming.

"Sorry, baby," whispered Lilith in her head, sounding anything but sorry. "I need to do this. I would have let it go, but you called me a monster. And I hate that word."

_Allyourfault, Allyourfault, Allyourfault... _The feeling continues, ten years later. Another death on her hands. The sight of her grandpa's twisted neck is what she sees when she looks at birthday cakes and ice cream.

Every year, when she's alone in the kitchen, she takes a knife from the drawer, turns it over, looks at it. Looks at her wrists.

Every year it gets harder to resist.


	3. Mother

**Surviving**

By Woman of Letters

_A/N Tag to Season 3 Episode 16: No Rest for the Wicked. Several chapters of this story contain dialogue from that episode. Warning: Triggers for depression; suicidal tendencies in this story._

Chapter 3: Mother

Her mother tried. She held her baby, she cried. She did all the things that mothers do.

When Lilith left her body, when she was finally free, she clung to her Mommy like a starfish clings to the ocean floor. She remembered the suckers on the bottom of the funny-looking fish, when she and her family had gone to the beach. She remembered laughing with her Dad, feeling the sandy grooves of the fish.

"What happened to it, Daddy?" she had asked.

"The ocean brought it in to the shore," he said. "For you."

The starfish had clung to the ocean floor, but the waves...the waves brought it out of the ocean. Out of its home.

She was like the starfish, flung about by the tide.

One day it happened. Mother stopped being "Mommy" and became "Mother."

It wasn't her Mother's fault that she wasn't a baby any longer. She'd lost that when Lilith had possessed her.

They tried to pretend things would go back to normal. She went to see the doctor, she talked to him...but she didn't tell him the secret. The five words no one must know.

Those she kept locked inside.


	4. Therapy

**Surviving**

By Woman of Letters

_A/N Tag to Season 3 Episode 16: No Rest for the Wicked. Several chapters of this story contain dialogue from that episode. Warning: Triggers for depression; suicidal tendencies in this story._

_Can't leave you guys with no hope whatsoever... This is the light at the end of the tunnel. :)_

Chapter 4: Therapy

"Miss Fremont, you came to me because you said you couldn't take it any more, that you needed to be free of your guilt."

"I know," she admits, because she did. Yesterday, when the memories of that party, long-ago but still alive in her, welled up in her head in the middle of class, she seriously considered slitting her own wrists. Desperate, she ran out of class, ran all the way home. Snuck her mom's phone book out of her purse, finding the number of the therapist she'd been to when she was much younger, right after the whole thing happened.

It had seemed like the answer. But now she feels it's a waste of time. How the hell can she talk about this? The guy will lock her up. He'll think she's crazy. Sometimes she thinks she's crazy herself. It had been Lilith who murdered her family. Lilith...using her body. So technically, she was the murderer.

Of course they'd never told the whole story. Her parents put together a feeble lie, but they swore up and down it was true. A vagrant had broken into their house, holding the family hostage. Killed her grandparents and her baby brother. Finally, her parents were able to overpower the vagrant and call the police, but the vagrant got away.

If only her guilt would go away as easily as their mythical vagrant.

"It's just...I keep dreaming about them."

"Your grandparents and your brother?"

"Yes."

"How long have you been having these dreams?"

"Ten years."

"Since it happened."

"Yes."

Dr. Django looked at his case notes. "I remember talking to you about those dreams when you were younger. You claimed they were getting better, that by the end of the six months of therapy, you weren't having them any more."

For a long moment, she almost makes some excuse, gets up and says this was a mistake. But then, nothing else has helped.

"I lied," she admits, pointedly not looking at the doctor's face. She blushes a little, but then, why should she care what he thinks of her?

"I thought so," he sighs. He waits expectantly.

_What does he want me to say?_

"So why now?" he asks.

"It's just...it's getting harder to push it off." She looks down at the floor. _Don't tell him you want to kill yourself._

"Do you blame yourself?"

"What do you think?"

"But why?"

She looks up at him. "I've never told anyone this before."

He just waits.

"She killed them for me."

It's the first time she's ever said this out loud. Not even her parents know. They don't know that Lilith picked targets based on her own emotions, that if she hadn't been annoyed with her brother, whom they'd nicknamed Freckles because of the spattering of freckles across his cheeks, then maybe he wouldn't be dead.

That's what Lilith kept telling her.

And it's a relief to say it. To share it. Even though the doctor probably won't understand.

But maybe...it's a beginning.

Maybe.


End file.
